Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims herein and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
A multilayer ceramic electronic component commonly includes a plurality of stacked dielectric layers, internal electrodes disposed to face each other, having dielectric layers interposed therebetween, and external electrodes electrically connected to respective internal electrodes.
Such a multilayer ceramic electronic component has been widely used as a component in a computer, a mobile communication device such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile phone or the like, due to inherent advantages such as a small size, high capacitance, ease of mounting, and the like.
As electronic products have been miniaturized and implemented with multi-functionality, chip components have also tended to be miniaturized and multi-functionalized. Therefore, small sized multilayer ceramic electronic components having high levels of capacitance are in demand.
To this end, a multilayer ceramic electronic component has been manufactured in which a size thereof is not increased, but in which an increased number of dielectric layers are stacked, through decreasing thicknesses of the dielectric layers and internal electrode layers, and thinning external electrodes.
In addition, as various elements of devices and apparatuses commonly used in fields requiring high degrees of reliability, such as vehicles and medical devices, are digitalized and demands thereon are increased, high degrees of reliability are also required in multilayer ceramic electronic components in accordance therewith.
As factors causing difficulties in the realization of high degrees of reliability, the infiltration of a plating solution into a ceramic main body of a multilayer ceramic electronic component, occurring at the time of a manufacturing process thereof, the generation of cracks due to external impacts, and the like, may be problematic.
Therefore, as a means for solving such problems, a resin composition containing a conductive material may be applied to an electrode layer of an external electrode of a multilayer ceramic electronic component in order to absorb external impacts and to prevent the infiltration of a plating solution thereinto, thereby improving product reliability.
However, in the case of applying a conductive resin layer to the electrode layer of a multilayer ceramic electronic component, a problem in which equivalent series resistance (ESR) increases may occur, such that a multilayer ceramic electronic component, in which such issues are not present, is required.